The Department of Justice report states: ‘There is a need to evaluate the issuance of hard body armor, helmets and ballistic shields that can be quickly deployed in high risk incidents.’
Photograph: Scott Clause/AP

A new report from the Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services (Cops) office finds that police officers are more likely to be killed responding to domestic disputes and disturbances than any other type of call. Forty per cent of incidents that led to law enforcement fatalities began this way, according to researchers, while calls about people with guns, shots fired or violent crimes such as robbery and burglary played a role as well.

The report, which analyzed 210 officer deaths between 2010 and 2014, recommends officers slow down in responding to calls, wait for backup whenever possible, and always wear bulletproof vests as strategies for reducing fatalities.

The report comes amid concerns nationwide about the safety of law enforcement officers on the job after coordinated attacks against police in Dallas and Baton Rouge. Citing those incidents, and the possibility of ones like it in the future, the report states: “There is a need to evaluate the issuance of hard body armor, helmets and ballistic shields that can be quickly deployed in high risk incidents” where assailants have access to high powered rifles. Many departments, including the NYPD, are already heeding this call, outfitting officers with the type of ballistic helmet that is believed to have saved an officer’s life during the Pulse nightclub shooting last month.

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In addition to service calls, such as for domestic incidents and crimes in progress, the report also reviewed deaths after officer-initiated actions such as traffic stops or investigating a suspicious person or vehicle. It found that nearly two-thirds of these fatal incidents happened during traffic stops.

“Until you get up on the driver and start asking questions, you don’t have any idea what you are getting into and things can escalate very quickly,” the retired Scottsdale, Arizona, police detective Jim Hill says in the report. “When you leave the car to go back to your car to do a reference check, you don’t know what is happening in that car. That’s why you need another officer to watch the driver and the passengers.”

The final category the report looked at was fatal crashes, which were responsible for more than a third of the 210 cases the study examined. More than half were killed while responding to requests for assistance from other officers, prompting the recommendation that officers slow down en route to such calls.